This cute elephant pair carved out of fine-grained Makarana marble
with mirror-like compaction and glaze, far more than an exotic
animal-specie, is a myth and as much a reality. In any of her phases,
those of religious renaissances – Shaiva, Vaishnava, Buddhist, Jain or
Sikh, warfare, or of splendid and majestic cultures, without her
elephant India would appear incomplete. Not merely that by itself
elephant is India's timeless legend it is also the core of numerous
myths revealing a divinity’s one divine attribute or other. Perhaps
too moody to suit Harappan city culture or too difficult to tame for
yajna-performers’ errand, elephant does not figure in Indus finds and
in Aryans’ texts, the celebrated Vedas, except as a moody unfriendly
animal that unprovoked destroyed the ashrams – seats of penance-doers.

However, the country’s entire past and the body of her entire
literature, the sectarian as well as secular, right since the Epic
days, abounds in innumerable fables echoing with the presence of
elephant as their crux. In the legends of the pre-birth dreams of the
mothers of Mahavira and Buddha, Trishala and Maya, elephant was
perceived as abounding in great auspiciousness. In Puranas elephant
became synonymous of auspiciousness, so much so that when looking for
a head to graft on the torso of Ganesh, the god of auspices, the
divinities chose an elephant head for it. Now the part of the
iconography of Lord Ganesh elephant was deified. Elephant played most
vital role in medieval architecture where along with Lord Ganesh who
occupied a building’s lintel elephant usually held its plinth on it or
guarded its entrance.

Emerge from ocean-churning, the white-complexioned one, named Eravata
– the Indra’s mount, the elephant is claimed to have celestial origin.
Not a mere mount, Eravata was an invaluable asset too. It appeases
Lord Krishna and seeks his pardon for its master when annoyed with
Indra for his impertinence Krishna had decided to punish him. Vishnu
deploys his elephants that he had befriended by rescuing their chief
from a crocodile’s jaws to bathe and please Lakshmi for her favours in
maintaining the world. A miracle, despite such massive body-size,
elephant is purely vegetarian living largely on tree-leaves, perhaps
the reason for its suitability to Jain and Buddhist cults. All along
the centuries-long feudalism in India elephant was the apex of the
status of a ruler determined by the number of elephants he had in his
stable. Mughals’ madness for elephants was unsurpassed. Akbar had at
Fatehpur Sikri a special shed for his favourite elephant just in the
foyer of his Diwan-i-Khas. The 1982 Asian Games had an elephant form,
named Appu, as its shubhanka – memento.

These excellent marble-images, exactly identical but independently
sculpted enabling diversified display, more than a sculptor’s, the two
jewels are a jeweler’s work. The beauty of translucent marble apart it
makes wide use of gold for discovering all significant parts, tusks by
gold-plating, and others – trunk, forehead, neck, feet etc, by
ornamenting them. There are some colour-zones too, most of the effects
have been created by gold-foils, gold-line-drawings and inlay of
semi-precious stones – rubies, zircons, emeralds and others. There
reign on the faces of the two figures a divine composure and calm and
rare innocence. Each of them has been saddled tastefully with rare
grandeur and great elegance and refinement. Both icons have been
identically adorned using various kinds of ornaments, diamond-bells on
the side-faces being of special interest. The trunk has towards its
end an object, perhaps a pot which in iconographic tradition is an
attribute of the elephants bathing goddess Lakshmi. Thus, the two
elephant forms may also be identified as Vishnu’s elephants deployed
for bathing and appeasing Lakshmi and have thus rarer significance.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.

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